


In Winter

by queensmooting



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, canonverse, pining and crap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5424269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queensmooting/pseuds/queensmooting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi catches his first glimpse of snow on the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Winter

**Author's Note:**

> still trying to heal my chapter 76 scabs with nonsensical fluff. set at some point after acwnr.
> 
> naomimisoras.tumblr.com

Two things happened at once: something wet fell on Levi’s shoulder, and Hange screamed.

Levi was always edgy outside the walls even when he didn’t look it, his fingers poised on triggers and his legs tensed to spring. The squads were camping high in trees for the night, and the lack of titans did little to dissuade his certainty that _something_ could go wrong.

Levi gripped his blade, turned, and saw two things at once: Hange had thrown their arms wide in the air, and snow was falling around them, a glow in the dark.

“This is perfect!” they shouted, then darted to their pack. “Moblit, where’s the binoculars? We’ve got to find a titan and see how one reacts to freezing temperatures, and get my notebook, oh  _wow_ …”

“Remember, we can’t engage yet! We’re only observing tonight, and…”

Levi tuned them both out, his sigh clouding in front of him. Now that immediate danger was ruled out he refocused on the snow. In essence it was frozen rain, and he pictured influenza, pneumonia. He pictured everything that tickled at the back of the throat and made him remember what death smelled like.

“Everyone, put your hoods up!” Levi called. “Don’t let yourselves get sick.”

At first he received a few questioning looks. Levi didn’t carry any real authority among the ranks yet, but he had made his mark, and one by one they listened.

Levi raised his own hood, settled it low enough to cover his bangs, and glanced up.

He had never seen snow falling before. In the underground city snow came in the form of slush run-offs from the streets above, grey-white with grit. Levi remembered watching a group of children his age trying to piece together a snowman from the scraps, with glinting pebbles for eyes and a quickly-melting smile. None of them had gloves to wear. A quarter of them didn’t last the winter.

This was something softer, colder and cleaner. Levi knew the canopy of the trees was keeping most of the snow off them, and he wanted to see more.

Levi aimed the hooks of his gear for a spot high on an opposite tree, then allowed the grapples to carry him up farther, soaring up with biting wind in his ears until he saw an opening. He slowed and detached the hooks, landing lightly on his feet on a wide branch that looked out past the forest.

There was someone else standing farther out on the limb, and it seemed he wasn’t the only one with the idea.

“Erwin,” he said, quietly, hoping not to startle him.

Erwin didn’t flinch.

“Levi,” he said, turning his head just enough for Levi to see his profile in the darkness. “Is something wrong?”

“Should there be?” Levi sheathed his blades as he walked closer to Erwin. “Just saw it was starting to snow, wanted to get a better vantage point. Make sure the horses won’t get stuck or anything.”

Erwin hummed acknowledgment, then raised his hand, catching a few drops and rubbing them between his fingers and thumb. “It feels too watery to stick to the ground, but it was very good of you to check.”

Levi shrugged, scratched his cheek, distracting himself from the way the simple praise made something small balloon warm in his chest. He didn’t need it. He didn’t know yet if he wanted it.

“You’ve probably never seen a snowfall,” Erwin said. “Am I right?”

Levi tensed. It wasn’t anything he wanted to keep secret, but if Erwin could see that, he wondered what else he saw, how many of Levi’s lines and edges he could read between.

“Yeah, you’re a genius, what else is new.”

“What do you think?”

Levi thought he had never seen anything set the night so bright. He thought it could have been near dawn, and he thought Erwin was better suited under the sun.

“It’s alright,” Levi said. “But you know.”

“No, I’d like to hear what you think. Really.”

Levi huffed a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck.

Seasons were a novelty now that he was above ground. Levi first came to the surface in a rain-soaked spring, and there was something in the way the sky shone in summer he wished he could bottle up and deliver below Sina. Autumn leaves came to the underground through the drains, but it couldn’t compare to watching them dying in glory on trees.

And the snow. Even with Hange shouting theories below, Levi had never seen something so quiet.

“Everything’s just…” Levi paused. “More. Out here. Or whatever. I don’t know.”

Erwin looked like he held all the words Levi didn’t know how to say. He accepted Levi’s explanation without a sound.

Levi’s gaze shifted toward the back of Erwin’s head, where he watched snowflakes melting into the warmth of his hair. He frowned and stepped closer, stretching to the tips of his toes to toss Erwin’s hood over his head.

A moment later he wondered if it hadn’t been too personal a move and he stepped back, folding his arms.

Erwin turned fully now, his face on the right side of the moonlight for Levi to see him. The freezing air had colored his cheeks pink, the sharp lines of his nose red. It took Levi a second too long to realize he had caught Erwin off guard, but he saw it in the small crease between his brows, the way his mouth opened just enough for Levi to tell something had shifted in their balance, possibly for good.

Levi had always been impulsive toward Erwin in words but never in actions, not since the first expedition. But this wasn’t violence, it was vulnerability. It was a gesture of the care that had crept up Levi over the last year, something he never envisioned when they first met with blades in hand.

Levi tugged at the side of his own hood, closing himself off from the way Erwin’s gaze opened him up.

“Don’t let your hair get wet,” Levi said, letting his eyes fall to a leaf near the toe of his boot. He gave it a half-hearted kick, sending it out to join the snow. “Stupid damn way to die.”

“I won’t.”

Levi couldn’t look, couldn’t stand anything more than the weight of Erwin’s eyes on his temple, but he could hear something like a smile in Erwin’s voice. 

It would do.

The snow created a muffled silence that settled like a warm weight over his ears, and for a moment the two of them were just as still. 


End file.
